Tag: Duckett & Dyer: Dicks For Hire

Duckett & Dyer: Dicks For Hire by G.M. Nair: No case too tough. No case too crazy.

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Duckett & Dyer: Dicks For HireDuckett & Dyer: Dicks For Hire

by G.M. Nair

DETAILS:
Series: Duckett & Dyer: Dicks For Hire, #1
Publisher: dS-dF
Publication Date: June 30, 2019
Format: Kindle Edition
Length: 302 pg.
Read Date: March 30-April 1, 2022
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What’s Duckett & Dyer: Dicks For Hire About?

I have been dreading this day for a little bit now, because I have to answer this question, and I’m not sure I can. At one point, Stephanie Dyer describes their
experiences as:

It’s like Quantum Leap, but if Scott Bakula had a concussion.

I’m tempted to leave it there and move on, but you’re going to want a little more than that.

So, Michael Duckett shares an apartment with his best friend since childhood, Stephanie Dyer. Shares is being generous—he pays the rent, utilities, and food bills. Stephanie tries not to cause trouble for him. Sometimes.

Michael hates his/their apartment, his job, and his life in general. What he doesn’t hate is flirting with a particular woman at the laundromat. There’s really not much more to say about his life—until a woman accosts him on the way home from the laundromat, demanding that he takes her case. He’s confused, and she presents an advertisement for his detective agency.

He has no idea what she’s talking about or where the advertisement came from. Stephanie doesn’t, either. Soon they’re hired to look into a woman’s disappearance by that woman. Somehow, she knew she was about to disappear and wants them to find out what’s about to happen to her/has happened to her by the time they get on the case.

Clear as mud? Yeah, I know.

Meanwhile, a grizzled detective is trying to take down a drug dealer—until he disappears in a way he can’t explain. It’s not long before he crosses paths with Duckett and Dyer and things get stranger for him (by this time, they’re already pretty strange for the detectives, but it gets worse for them, too).

The Multiverse of Madness

(with apologies to a certain franchise)

“That’s it?” Michael scowled. “It looks like you took a stopwatch and glued some extra stuff on it.”

Matteo slammed the box closed and yanked it away. “You make your own dimension hopping device on a grad school budget and see how it looks.”

Without giving too much away, the duo finds themselves bouncing from parallel universe to parallel universe—some have a slightly asynchronous timeline, others have bigger differences—some have differences that are so small, like people’s hair color.

The explanation for both their travel and the research that led to it being possible (and how they’ll stop, I should add) is slightly more coherent than a certain someone’s “wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey” speech. Coherent, but goofy and entertainingly explained. The jumping from universe to universe is a great joke delivery mechanism, Nair was able to let his imagination run wild here—and it was worth it.

The Humor

“You’re kidding me. You’re traveling across dimensions using black holes?”

“Yeah. Plus I made the whole thing light up blue. Took me a whole weekend to figure out how to do that. I think it looks cool,” Matteo was quite pleased with himself.

Speaking of joke delivery mechanisms—Nair has quite a few of them at work here. Some of the humor is quiet and observational, some is the classic situational kind of thing that comes from the Odd Couple-esque pairing of Michael and Stephanie, and then there’s the ridiculous SF/Multiverse stuff—I don’t even know how to describe that.

This story felt like the love child of Dirk Gentley’s Holistic Detective Agency and Comedy Central’s Corporate, but sweeter. The humor is sophisticated and juvenile, subtle and broad, cynical and sentimental. Not only was the story unpredictable, but so was the humor—Nair almost never went where you thought he would go with the jokes.

So, what did I think about Duckett & Dyer: Dicks For Hire?

“I can’t believe there are people who actually want to hire a couple of detectives with no experience.”

“Don’t doubt the power of internet marketing,” Stephanie said.

“Also, the ad said we’ve been in business since 1989.”

“We were born in 1989.”

She shrugged, “So, technically, I guess. It’s true.”

This was just absurd (in the best way). It’s not novel to combine any of the genres involved in the novel, but the way Nair does it makes it feel fresh and original—why didn’t anyone think of this before?

Both Stephanie and Michael are hard to like sometimes—okay, Michael is difficult to like as a person more than sometimes—mostly you take him because Stephanie likes him. Actually, just about every character is realistically human and flawed—very flawed. That’s not something you often get in such a comic novel, it’s nice when you do.

Duckett & Dyer: Dicks For Hire is a great start to this trilogy—it’s an SF romp with just a touch of Detective Fiction. Once things get moving, it’s one of the faster-paced books I’ve read this year, and the jokes keep the story moving well. You’re not going to find a lot of books like this one—you’d better pounce on it (and the sequel) when you can.


4 Stars

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My thanks to Escapist Book Tours for the invitation to participate in this tour and the materials (including the novel) they provided. The opinions expressed by me are honest and my own.

Escapist Book Tours

EXCERPT from Duckett & Dyer: Dicks For Hire by G.M. Nair

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For the next part of my stop on The Escapist Blog Tour for Duckett & Dyer: Dicks For Hire by G.M. Nair, I have this nifty excerpt. Enjoy!


from Duckett & Dyer: Dicks For Hire by G.M. Nair

It was dark outside by the time he left. Michael couldn’t see his watch, but it was definitely around 9:30. He walked down the street past a row of cars, neatly angle parked. At the end sat Michael’s 1982 Mercury Zephyr, a car that he lovingly referred to as “the Garbagemobile.” The otherwise red car had a canary yellow passenger’s side door that failed to function since its previous owner had opted to weld it shut for undisclosed reasons. Still, the trunk worked well enough. Michael thumped his fist on the corner and it popped open, allowing him to toss in his laundry. Or was it clothes, now? When did your laundry stop being “laundry” and become “clothes”? When you folded it? When you brought it home? Or when you put it in your dresser? Michael enjoyed this pointless line of questioning brought on by the euphoria of his potential date with a beautiful woman, as it distracted him from overthinking about said date.

Michael slammed the trunk shut and turned to find the crazed blue eyes and wild hair of an entirely different, entirely angrier woman who had definitely not been there a second ago. He jolted backwards and tumbled onto the asphalt. A jeep whizzed by his head at what felt like 50 miles per hour, but was probably more like 5.

“Oh my God! What the hell, lady?” A situation in which panic was natural. Michael almost felt at home.

“You’re Michael Duckett!” The woman declared in a voice so far from Terri’s melodic tones, it would need a GPS to get within striking distance.

“Uh . . . yeah?” was all he could muster. “How do you know my name? Who are you?”

“I need your help!” She seemed less interested in his questions than her own agenda, whatever that was.

“You need . . . my help?” Michael pulled himself to his feet by leaning on the Garbagemobile’s rear bumper, which shuddered against the rusty nails holding it on. “For what?”

“I saw your ad. I need to hire you. It’s urgent.”

“Sorry. My ad? I think you have the wrong guy. I’m not for hire.” Michael brushed himself off and, being certain his life was no longer in any significant peril, took stock of the situation. He sidled past the woman, who was wearing medical scrubs beneath the folds of a long brown coat, and onto the sidewalk. If she had escaped from a mental hospital, killed an orderly, and stolen his clothes, that would explain the scrubs. It was a bit of a reach, but not an unreasonable conclusion given the circumstances.

“I have a case for you,” she said. Her eyes had a cold fire behind them that complemented the harsh red lipstick that popped against her dark olive skin. She would have been beautiful if she hadn’t been completely off her rocker.

“Yeah, a . . . nut case,” Michael winced. Another joke that didn’t land tonight, but there really wasn’t much time to workshop it. “Lady, I can give you bus fare or . . . uh . . . whatever you need. But I’m pretty sure you have the wrong person.”

“No. I definitely don’t. You’re the detective!” Despite her manic motions, the woman’s frizzy, curly blast of bright blonde hair refused to move very much.

“Detective? What the hell are you talking about?” Michael inched toward the door of the Garbagemobile. “I’m not—”

The woman slapped her hand on the door, blocking his escape. With her other hand, she removed a smartphone from her purse and thrust it at him. “I recognized you from your photo.”

Michael left the smartphone in her hand and awkwardly scrolled down with a single finger. It was not often that Michael got to use a fancy smartphone. His own was an elderly flip affair with a creaky hinge. The screen on this one was brighter and boasted a higher resolution which allowed the bold black headline to leap out of the bright white background in all-caps, silently yelling at him:

“MICHAEL DUCKETT AND STEPHANIE DYER – PRIVATE EYES FOR HIRE – NO CASE TOO TOUGH, NO CASE TOO CRAZY – REASONABLE RATES – ANY TIME DAY OR NIGHT.”

It was a simple internet classified ad—the Hail Mary of desperate schlubs seeking used leisure suits or unlikely missed connections. Below the headline was a picture of him and his oldest friend – and roommate two years running – Stephanie Dyer, standing side by side. It was cropped to focus only on their chests and heads, so Michael couldn’t place where or when it had been taken. Stephanie was making overenthusiastic gun fingers at the camera, while Michael seemed aloof in an attempt to appear cool. It had not worked.

 


Read the rest in Duckett & Dyer: Dicks For Hire by G.M. Nair.

My thanks to Escapist Book Tours for the invitation to participate in this tour and the materials (including the novel) they provided. The opinions expressed by me are honest and my own.

Escapist Book Tours

BOOK SPOTLIGHT & GIVEAWAY: Duckett & Dyer: Dicks For Hire by G.M. Nair

I’m very pleased to welcome the Escapist Book Tour for G.M. Nair’s Duckett & Dyer: Dicks For Hire to The Irresponsible Reader this morning! In addition to this little spotlight post, I have an excerpt to share and then I’ll share my take on the novel coming along in a bit. Be sure you scroll down to the bottom of this post for the Giveaway! But first, let’s start by learning a little about this book, okay?

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Book Details:

Book Title: Duckett & Dyer: Dicks For Hire by G.M. Nair
Series: Duckett & Dyer: Dicks For Hire
Publisher: dS-dF
Release date: June 30, 2019
Format: Hardcover/Paperback/Ebook
Length: 302 pages
Genre: Sci-Fi/Mystery/Comedy
Intended Age Group: Adult
Duckett & Dyer: Dicks For Hire

About the Book

Michael Duckett is fed up with his life. His job is a drag, and his roommate and best friend of fifteen years, Stephanie Dyer, is only making him more anxious with her lazy irresponsibility. Things continue to escalate when they face the threat of imminent eviction from their palatial 5th floor walk-up and find that someone has been plastering ads all over the city for their Detective Agency.

The only problem is: they don’t have one of those.

Despite their baffling levels of incompetence, Stephanie eagerly pursues this crazy scheme and drags Michael, kicking and screaming, into the fray. Stumbling upon a web of missing people curiously linked by a sexually audacious theoretical physicist and his experiments with the fabric of space-time, the two of them find that they are way out of their depth. But unless Michael and Stephanie can put their personal issues aside and patch up the hole they tore in the multi-verse, the concept of existence itself may, ironically, cease to exist.

See Also:

Doctor WhoHere it Goes AgainPsych

Book Links

Amazon ~ IndieBound ~ Goodreads

About the Author

G.M. NairG.M. Nair is a crazy person who should never be taken seriously. Despite possessing both a Bachelor’s and Master’s Degree in Aerospace Engineering and a job as an Aviation and Aerospace Consultant, he writes comedy for the stage and screen, and maintains the blog MakeMomMarvel.Com. Now he is making the leap into the highly un-lucrative field of independent book publishing.

Duckett & Dyer: Dicks For Hire is his first novel, and in a world with a fair and loving god, it would be his last. Alas, he tends to continue.

G.M. Nair lives in New York City and in a constant state of delusion.

Twitter ~ Instagram

Giveaway

Prize: An eBook, Paperback, or Hardcover Copy of Duckett & Dyer: Dicks For Hire!
Starts: April 4th, 2022 at 12:00am EST
Ends: April 10th, 2022 at 11:59pm EST
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Direct link: http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/79e197ac17/



My thanks to Escapist Book Tours for the invitation to participate in this tour and the materials (including the novel) they provided. The opinions expressed by me are honest and my own.

Escapist Book Tours

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